About changing the status of the --parent option of the hg backout command from DEPRECATED to WARNING

[André Felipe Dias]

2013/5/18 Nikolaj Sjujskij <sterkrig at myopera.com>

> Den 2013-05-18 03:39:47 skrev André Felipe Dias <andref.dias at gmail.com>:
>
>
>  2013/5/17 Matt Mackall <mpm at selenic.com>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> I don't think the existence of a non-broken use case is essential or
>>>> even possible. Simply, there is no alternative sometimes! As in a
>>>> wrong merge between an incomplete feature branch and the default
>>>> branch. Yes, there will be implications, but they are unavoidable and
>>>> inherent to DVCS and not a hg's limitation.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> When a situation like this occurs and a user searches for a solution,
>>>> the backout command is the best shot but its help says:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>     "Note: backout cannot be used to fix either an unwanted or
>>>> incorrect merge."
>>>>
>>>
>>>  This is misinformation! The backout command can fix it through the
>>>> '--parent' option, but there are implications.
>>>>
>>>
>>> And the "implications" here are that it doesn't actually fix anything
>>> and leaves you with more problems than you started with.
>>>
>>
Not more problems. Only a different kind of problem to be solved later on.
It is up to an informed user to weight them all and choose if it is worth.


>
>> Still, this problem eventually happens and thus needs a solution. What do
>> you recommend?
>>
>  I recommend not thinking that `backout --parent` could help in this case.
> It's one thing when one devises his own kludgy "solution" (like creating a
> patch with `hg diff` then applying it), and quite the other when one sees
> some magic option and relies on tool developers (they should know better,
> shouldn't they?). Both do essentially the same, both have the same
> implications, but `backout --parent` smells "official", while homebrewn
> solution is more... kind of "transparent", thus exposing those implications
> better.


I believe we all agree that the problem is not in the command itself. It
does exactly what it is supposed to do. The problem is inherent to DVCS and
a complete solution encompasses more than a single command execution. I was
wondering if there is some way to make this clear to the user without
bloating the help text. If you guys think it is not worth, its ok to me.
But IMHO, the user is helpless in this situation.

André
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